1. Field
The present invention relates generally to wireless messaging communication, and more specifically to techniques for filtering SMS broadcast messages at a mobile station.
2. Background
Short Message Service (SMS) is a service that supports the exchange of SMS or short messages between mobile stations and a wireless communication system. These short messages may be user-specific messages intended for specific recipient mobile stations or broadcast messages intended for multiple mobile stations.
Broadcast SMS messages may be sent by a wireless communication network for various service categories (e.g., news, sports, and so on), in different languages, and with different priorities. Each mobile station in the network may be allowed by its service provider to receive all broadcast messages, only a subset of the broadcast messages, or no broadcast messages. For a given mobile station, the broadcast messages that it is allowed to receive may be determined by various factors which may relate to network deployment, service provisioning, subscription status, and so on. For example, a premium mobile subscriber may be allowed to receive all broadcast messages whereas a regular mobile subscriber may be allowed to receive only broadcast messages for certain bundled service categories.
A mobile user may be interested in receiving only some of the broadcast SMS messages that are allowed to be received by the mobile station. For example, the mobile user may be interested in receiving only broadcast messages for certain service categories (e.g., sports) and/or with certain priority level or higher. The broadcast messages that can be received by the mobile station may also be limited by the availability of resources (e.g., memory storage) at the mobile station.
There is therefore a need in the art for techniques to “filter” SMS broadcast messages to be received by a mobile station based on one or more criteria determined by the service provider and/or the mobile user.